Charging into the future: lithium’s role in net zero drive

Modern lithium production methods give us the opportunity to transition to EVs in the best way possible.

In the 1990s, the EU pushed car manufacturers towards diesel as a lower-carbon fuel for vehicles, to meet emissions reduction targets. The supposed benefits of this switch masked a problem: diesel was making air pollution worse, through harmful NOx emissions. The “dieselgate” scandal, first exposed in 2015, showed how initially well-meaning bureaucrats then turned a blind eye as systemic emissions test cheating became an open secret.

As we embark on the biggest industrial change – the electrification of everything – since the industrial revolution, we should heed the lessons of the past.

First, the good news: multiple studies have shown that EVs have a lower carbon footprint over their life cycle, compared to internal combustion engine cars (ICEs). With renewable power, the delta of carbon emissions avoided becomes even greater. They are faster and better for the planet. They are helping to lower carbon emissions, but regardless of your stance on climate change, they are better for your and your children’s health at school drop-off. Seven million people die prematurely every year from pollution, largely caused by ICEs.

However, we can greatly improve the way we transition to EVs. Lithium-ion batteries are full of metals, and currently these are carbon-intensive to produce. As lithium demand, driven by EV production, is growing at a compound annual growth rate of about 30 per cent, a once niche industry is going mainstream. Once produced, this lithium is fully recyclable, but we need to produce unprecedented amounts first, as most of it is still in the ground, in salty brines and in rocks.

Legacy production methods ­either use large quantities of re­agents to extract the lithium from brines, or high energy processes to extract the lithium from rocks and refine it. Both processes are very carbon-intensive. A tonne of lithium hydroxide, using legacy methods mainly in China and South America, takes somewhere between 15 and 30 tonnes of carbon emissions to produce.

Assuming a very rough battery chemistry and battery size average, to produce the lithium required to electrify the world’s passenger vehicles would take about two billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions. To put that into context, a billion tonnes of CO2 is the annual emissions of France, Italy and the UK combined.

Thankfully, the solution already exists. In the 1970s, Dow invented a sorbent to extract lithium from brines. This method was commercialised by FMC, in the 1990s, in Argentina. FMC is now Livent, and recently announced it was merging with Allkem to become the third-largest lithium company. Similar lithium plants started to spring up in China. Because the sorbent takes the lithium out of the brine selectively, it reduces the need for reagents to treat the brine, which is one of the carbon-intensive legacy production methods. Other advantages of the process are its low cost of production, speed to market and ability to produce a pure product suitable for the EV industry.

Sorption-type production has potential to decarbonise lithium, but it requires a heat source to work. Existing producers using sorption use gas to heat up the brine prior to running the lithium production process.

Here as well, there is a solution. Some brines in sub-surface reservoirs are naturally heated by the geothermal gradient beneath the earth. In some parts of the world, these are already used to generate renewable power and district heating.

Where lithium and heat are present in sufficient quantities in the brine, sorption-type lithium production can work commercially, but also with net zero carbon emissions, by harnessing the geothermal energy. Excess power can even be produced and sold, as well as used to power the final, refining steps of the process. This is battery metals production for the 21st century and fit for the EV transition.

Government and industry are starting to take notice. Goldman Sachs recently published a report extolling the advantages of sorption-type lithium extraction, stating that they prefer “briners to miners”.

ExxonMobil is reportedly getting into deep lithium brines that would use sorption. The Chilean government recently announced that new lithium projects in the country would have to use these modern methods, because of their environmental benefits.

Stellantis, which includes brands such as Fiat-Chrysler and Peugeot-Citroen, signed a 10-year lithium offtake agreement with zero carbon lithium project developer Vulcan Energy, along with an industry-first $76m strategic investment. Vulcan is already producing geothermal energy, and is currently building the world’s first carbon neutral, zero fossil fuel lithium production facilities next door, using its own sorbent.

For the first time since the dawn of humanity, we are de-coupling from carbon-based energy. The metals demand for this transition is on a scale the world has never seen before. The resources industry has show itself to be agile and inventive before, from operating 4km deep mines, to building $40bn LNG projects, once considered science fiction.

Now, with customers demanding zero carbon battery metals, and with major companies involved, expect some big changes in the way we produce lithium for our family EVs.

Francis Wedin is chief executive of Vulcan Energy Resources.